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Giraffes don’t fight much, says Jessica Granweiler, a graduate student at the University of Manchester in England who studies nature’s tallest mammals. When they do, be careful.
“Combating is extremely rare because it is extremely fierce,” said Ms. Granweiler.
When older adult males joust for territory or mating rights, horn-like ossicones propel pairs with the power of their long necks and can injure and sometimes even kill a warrior by cutting into the flesh of their opponents.
But some giraffe duels serve other purposes. Inside study Published last month in the journal Ethology, Ms. Granweiler and her colleagues reported some discoveries about the sparring behavior that helps giraffes form social hierarchies. They showed that the animals did not take advantage of the smaller members of their herd, but instead applied their heads to similarly sized males in a way that might appear fair or dignified to a human.
Such findings could help maintain dwindling animal populations.
Ms. Granweiler and her colleagues observed social behavior in giraffes in the small Mogalakwena River Reserve in South Africa from November 2016 to May 2017. They began to record the details of these fights – basically a who-who-fight and how did it happen in the giraffe? World.
They were surprised to find that, like humans, giraffes can have either right or south paws when it comes to sparring. Even the youngest animals showed clear preference, but unlike humans, they seemed to be evenly split between right and left.
The researchers also noticed that the younger males fought each other more and almost always chose rivals of similar size to themselves—there wasn’t much bullying. The effect of a bar fight also persisted, where a sparring match impressed the crowd and sparked more fights around them.
The youngest men also fought a little differently. Ms. Granweiler, who was an undergraduate at the time of the study, said they probably applied the technique. They might be measuring their strength against their peers as they nod their heads towards each other’s chests and butts.
Mature adults would also fight, but in wrestling matches they spent more time pressing their necks together. Ms. Granweiler suggested that these interactions were simply assessments of each other’s strength without resorting to wars.
He also found that men almost always respected the opponent’s choice on which side to fight. For example, if the two south claws are pointing up, they will mate head to tail. If one of the opponents was right-handed and the other left-handed, they would line up head-to-head.
“I don’t know if it’s a mutual agreement – respect my side and I’ll respect yours,” said Mrs. Granweiler. “I’ve never seen a man try to cheat.”
While the fights were fair, they sometimes had a referee. Ms. Granweiler said older, mature men occasionally disrupt sparring games between younger men. These men may be spying on their peers or they may be trying to prevent hot young brands from gaining a little too much self-confidence.
“This is a clever way to create confusion among lower-ranking males to maintain dominance and monopolize females,” said Monica Bond, who studies giraffe social dynamics at the University of Zurich in Switzerland but was not involved in this study. “As with most mammals, it’s a tough world outside for males.”
Ms. Granweiler added, “This is probably her way of saying, ‘Remember—I’m the strongest here too.’”
Bond described the article as “well done,” but noted that the paper examined a relatively small population with some degree of possible inbreeding between individuals. While he said his conclusions were valid, it was unclear whether free-ranging males from a more genetically diverse population would behave differently.
Ms. Granweiler said the more we understand about giraffe behavior, the better we can manage the animals. For example, how and when males can fight can be important information for zoo owners or other small wildlife reserves.
Dr. Bond added that such social interactions can teach us why populations can be larger or smaller in certain areas. Important information as giraffe populations are shrinking in many parts of Africa.
“If the dominant male monopolizes mating, then the effective population size is much smaller than if all sexually mature males can mate,” he said. “These behaviors determine how much genetic variation is passed on from males to future generations.”
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